“Anyone who has gotten to a certain level of success has
been helped multiple times formally or informally,” panelist Laura Helmuth said
during a plenary session on mentoring. Helmuth is the science and health editor
of Slate magazine and serves on the board of the National Association of
Science Writers, which paid for the women in science writing conference at MIT.

Although the idea of veterans helping less established
journalists was universally hailed as a good thing, two caveats surfaced again
and again: Participants were urged to seek female mentors (to reduce sexual
complications) and advised not to become friends with their mentors (unclear to
me why).

Fortunately, nobody gave me this advice when I was a
grasshopper.

As a result, I went out to dinner with Ben Patrusky decades
ago, on break from a giant medical meeting in Miami, and learned that far from
being alone and uniquely incompetent, I was typical. Every science writer
worries about getting the facts wrong, Ben told me, and we all get anxious when
we start a new story. Every time.

Welcome to science writing: a profession filled with people
who oscillate between hubris and imposter syndrome.

Ben was the first of several men who’ve been wonderful
mentors, sponsors and – wait for it – friends during my working life. DonGibbons, Victor McElheny, H. R. Shepherd and Dr. William Ira Bennett are some
of the others. (A sponsor, I learned at the conference, is a highly placed
person in your organization who helps you get a promotion. As opposed to a
mentor, who offers mostly advice.)

Some of my mentors are older than me, some younger. Summit
speakers emphasized that age is irrelevant and what matters is listening, then
knowing what to say and when.

My first and most important mentor was a woman. Willa
Shovar, my ninth-grade homeroom teacher, took an interest in me because I was 13
years old and reading a battered paperback copy of The Tin Drum.As soon as I graduated from high school, she announced that I had to
stop calling her “Mrs. Shovar,” and that we could now become friends. She gave
me the chutzpa to become a writer.

Fast forward to the AIDS catastrophe, when I met Ann Giudici Fettner in the pressroom at the first International Conference on AIDS.
Fearless and profane, she wrote smuggled vials of blood from Africa to U.S.
labs and wrote scientifically brilliant coverage for the Village Voice and The
New York Native. Much later, she emboldened me to write my own book about the
search for an HIV vaccine.

Not knowing any better, I became friends with most of these
folks. Time and distance have taken a toll, as has death. Every one of these
people has enriched my career and made my life better.

Good mentors are hard to find. I hope younger women in
science writing won’t go through life afraid that every male is a sexual
predator. Some are, most are not.

And I hope up-and-coming women science writers won’t be wary
of friendship, which is much less abundant than it appears.

During the conference session on mentoring, scientist and Wired blogger
Gwen Pearson eloquently described a mentor as a door opener, “someone who takes
things unknown and secret and reveals them to you.”

Who doesn’t need that?

So do good work, fight back when you’re dissed and take an
interest in other people. Open a door whenever you can, and thank people who
open one for you.

Healthy Journalism

Grady College's Health & Medical Journalism Masters program at University of Georgia prepares reporters to write accurate, timely, interesting and credible articles about health and medical news for various audiences. Basic newswriting skills are required, and it helps to have a spirit of adventure. Students receive hands-on training by exploring and reporting health issues impacting various counties in Northeast Georgia.